I added videos and pictures. If someone wanted to post something to the blog, I think that'd be fun as well.

I'm trying to be a bit better about collaborating on the software, instead of just running ahead and writing everything myself. But it's so much fun I can't help myself

However, I have in theory got the code generalized such that people can just write code that talks in x,y terms, and the library will take care of lighting the right bulbs. If you have a Linux computer, I've even got a simulator, so you can do development without having to be connected to the blocks themselves. Holler if you're interested; I'd be happy to make it more available to others.

We've got another string that we need to mount, and we really should clean up the electrical at some point. Jude seemed to be on top of that process.

If anyone wants to buy strings to contribute to the effort, they're $65 at Costco.

Awesome!! I want to remind folks again about a guideline for posting; if there is an existing topic thread going, let's try to find it and post as a reply rather than starting a new thread. This will help to cut duplication and help others find things.

I've been playing with a string of the lights at home, on my own. (They'll likely find their way to the Hack Factory when I get bored with them.)

I grabbed the led.pde file from the github site (https://github.com/knitfoo/geled/blob/master/led.pde) but it wouldn't compile clean for me. It complained that 'bulb' wasn't defined, or something like that, but the line number of the error was one of the comment lines in the header. WTH?

After a little googling and some trial-and-error, I figured out that it didn't like the uint8_t types. I converted them all to char and then it compiled clean.

I'm running Arduino 0023 on Mac OSX.

Since I got the arduino sketch to compile, I've been working on a gui, written in python, to communicate with it.

I'll post up some source when I have something I wouldn't be totally embarrassed to show in public.

Note that there is a library defined which was meant to be general purpose, and python bindings shouldn't be too hard. The interface is just init/get size/set pixel/term. There is a simulator which exposes the same api, which makes it nice for doing development as well.

I've spent some time trying to define a 'correct' way to do the wiring...and failing utterly. Luno suggested using trailer hitch wiring assemblies as an alternate, and that strikes me as a great idea. I'm going to try to get some parts to experiment with and return to get it right.

I did end up taking everything apart, so nothing is operational at the moment. The project parts are all against the east wall; there is a third board all ready to go...just waiting to be wired up.

Alright, trailer hitches work great, and it looks like a PC power supply will work fine as well.

Sadly, I learned that running negative voltage into a string of lights seems to kill 'em. Hopefully, I've only killed the first light in the chain and not the whole string. So I think that counts as 3 steps back, 2 steps forward.

It's still disassembled, but I'll hopefully build out the beginnings of a final design next time I'm in. I mostly just need to figure out how to bake six female hitch ends into a case in some secure + robust way, and I should be done. Although if I can find a PCI 3 storage device, I could potentially work to get that alternate computer going as well...

It's again non operational, and against the West wall. I've got a bit of time, so hopefully I can come in and get 'em running again fairly soon. If anyone is interested on working on it, it wouldn't take a lot to set it up, just holler.

Okay, I think I've done most of my awful electrical hacking and can get back to the software. Electronics gurus are welcome to go and clean it up, so long as you leave it operational.

The lights should be pretty much operational. Nicely, switching the PC power supply on/off is an easy way to turn the whole business on and off. I plan to tune up the web page a bit to make it easier to control the whole mess from a web page so anyone can operate the lights easily. Hopefully I'll get that done this week sometime.

I need to go out and get another string of lights to replace the ones I burned out; I'll try to get to that before they run out. If anyone has a string of 50 they want to bring in, the process for creating a board and wiring them up is now well understood and pretty straightforward (see the Wiki). We can take advantage of new light strings rapidly now.